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Telemarketers calling my cell phone--is there nothing I can do?

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R

Rockstar

Guest
Hello all, I'm in Maryland. I just recently started receiving telephone solicitation calls on my cellular phone. I looked on the FCC website and found the 'Rules and Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991' which states in section 64.1200 that

(a) No person or entity may:

(1) Initiate any telephone call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with prior consent of the called party) using an automated telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice,

(iii) To any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular service, specialized mobile radio service, or common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is charged for the call;

Assuming the above verbiage does apply to my situation...

One call in particular got me steamed about the subject. I was driving my wife to work since the weather was poor; the roads were slick and covered in snow. As I'm driving down the road my phone rings and on the line is a telemarketer trying to get me to sign up for a MasterCard. Now to add insult to injury, when I ask to speak with his supervisor he tells me that they are not available and hangs up on me. And of course the calls I am getting are from a 'Restricted Number' which means the numbers do not show up on my caller ID, which I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with.

After looking at the info on the FCC website, I call up Verizon (my cell phone provider) and talked to a customer representative about the calls. She agreed that these calls were against the law but she told me that there is no way for me to get any of the callers’ information, short of getting a subpoena for their records (you would think that since they’re charging me for these calls that I would be entitled to this information but apparently not, she informed me that even she did not have access to the information.) Furthermore, she told me that there was no way for me to block calls from restricted numbers.

So what I got from all of this is that; yes it is against the law but there is nothing I can do to stop it short of getting a lawyer and getting a judge to issue a subpoena for the records then suing. I have a mortgage, two car payments, loads of holiday bills, and a child on the way... Needless to say I don’t think I have the disposable income to take the only action I believe I can take, and even if I did it does not seem like it would be fruitful.

So my question is; does anyone know of another way (a cheaper way) to hold these telemarketers accountable? They’re breaking the law, putting me at risk (arguably of course) and making me pay out of my pocket for their unwanted solicitations.

Thanks in advance for you time and feedback.

-Kyle
 


stephenk

Senior Member
you can always choose not to answer the phone. If I get a call on my cell phone from a number that is not already on my phone list, i let the call go to voicemail.
 
R

Rockstar

Guest
Well, I would be inclined to answer the call anyhow in the event that the person I spoke with would offer the information I needed (who they worked for) to take them to small claims court. If I could get them to pay $500 for every time they called my cell phone they would surely stop. What I mean is, I am not looking to save those two airtime minutes, rather I'm looking to get them to stop and most importantly, hold them accountable.

I've found people on the internet who claim it is not terribly difficult to do so, assuming that you can track them down:

http://www.panix.com/~eck/telemarket.html
 

gobonas99

Member
Why don't you just add your cell phone number to the national do not call registry? My husband and I had gotten a couple of telemarketing calls on our cell phones...I put those numbers on the DNC list when I put our home phone on it...and we haven't gotten any TM calls on our cells since! :)
 
R

Rockstar

Guest
It is on the national do not call registry. I added it a few months ago.
 
R

Rockstar

Guest
I just varified that it was registered three months ago (that's how long telemarketers have to remove the number from their call list) and it was:

Your phone number with the last four digits XXXX was registered in the National Do Not Call Registry on 9/25/2003. Most telemarketers will be required to stop calling you three months from your registration date.

This is why I want to not just get around recieving calls from them, I want to hold them accountable. What good is it to pass a law against these types of things if they are allowed to just ignore it? They're not allowed to call cell phones, they're not allowed to call me if i'm on the do not call registry, they're not allowed to hang up on me without giving me the information I requested but they're doing it all and I'm helpless to stop them.
 

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